Pedestrians' air sensors to create map of pollution

Tuesday 30 June 2009 10:04 BST

Pedestrians are to be given portable pollution monitors to help create a map of London's hotspots for poor quality air.

The sensors will measure up to five pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxides, and transmit the data via the volunteers' mobile phones. Scientists say it could radically alter our understanding of how pollution spreads through London.

Project director Professor John Polak, of the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London, said: "There is a lot that we do not know about air quality in our cities because the current generation of large stationary sensors don't provide enough information."

Sensors will also be given to cyclists, attached to buses and cars and placed on lampposts and traffic lights to see how pollution clouds form and dissipate as they rise.

They will transmit the data to Imperial College where computers will create live pollution maps.

The team already have 100 sensors in South Kensington, Leicester, Gateshead and Cambridge to test how they operate. They hope to expand the scheme with thousands of sensors across Britain.

As well as offering advice to asthma sufferers and others who are particularly sensitive to pollution, researchers hope the three-year study could lead to better management of traffic and improved air quality at the worst sites.